Death of the Critic

Sit Still, Look Pretty - Review

Saccharine sweet bubblegum pop. Daya’s album is nothing you haven’t heard before if you’ve turned on a radio in the last ten years. Yet at the same time that she exists firmly within the realm of generic pop music, the relentlessly positive anthems hit good notes to make some good, if forgettable pop songs. I couldn’t help but find myself singing along, even if the lyrics were a bit cheesy. You’ll recognize her from her claim to fame song, “Hide Away”, and her female positive message carries on through the entirety of the lengthy album. You can see it in the titles and in the standard set of pop songs about boys, breakups, and empowerment. Daya does not want to be a trophy, to be looked at as someone else’s object. To sit still and look pretty. It is a positive feminist message that is important to hear, even if we have heard it before.“Thirsty” has her singing about boys and their desperation, and while supremely cheesy, it had me belting along, “T to the H, to the I R S T Y you thirsty”. Like a strange cheer you might hear on an elementary playground, it taps into that childlike segment of your brain that loved singing along in the car, purely because of how ridiculous it is. Of course “Hide Away” is just as good as the first time that I heard it, and it stands out as the highlight of the album, easily eclipsing the rest of the tracks.This brings up my main issue with the album, that most of the songs sound like they could have come off of any pop album of the last decade. They sound generic, even if they try to be have a more feminist positive message. I want more of the unique flavor that can make pop so great. Very little here rose above the level of average pop music. And they did a disservice to the standout music that is here, “Thirsty”, “Hide Away”, and “Sit Still, Look Pretty” are excellent, but brought down to seeming more average by association. I enjoyed it, but only because I had not listened to pop music in a while.

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Tom has been writing about media since he was a senior in high school. He likes long walks on the beach, dark liquor, and when characters reload guns in action movies.